Brew Review – Twin Lake’s Oktoberfest and the Beauty of Finding Beer

Twin Lakes’ Oktoberfest

If you’re a beer lover who tends to buy more beer then they can drink in a given time frame, or you like to age beer, you most likely have a “beer fridge”. And if you’re like me, your fridge is full sized and confined to some out of the way place in you home, either the laundry room or the garage. And again, if you’re like me, you’ve come to grips with the fact that sometimes, in the interest of domestic harmony, things other than beer must go into your beer fridge.

You’ve probably had a similar experience, you’re standing in front of your open fridge with either the Thanksgiving day turkey that must defrost, or trays of side dishes your significant other has cooked for tomorrow’s Christmas dinner at her parents house. Your eyes have input into your brain an exact 3D rendering of not only the object in your hands, but the layout of the contents in your fridge as well, and come to the sad conclusion that yes – it just won’t fit.

So there you are moving the beer around in your fridge so that the alien item will fit, slowly cussing to yourself that this exercise is totally running the zymological feng shui that you have established. After all, every beer in your beer fridge is precisely in the spot it should be, correct? So at the end of this reorganization you find that you’ve made room for everything, if only you could find a space for the two bomber bottles that you have in your hands. Quickly you decide to use the only option available to you, you pull open the crisper drawer to place the over flow into to only to find – that it’s already full with beer. What’s this? You ask. Beer? Beer you’d forgotten about? Beer that you probably put in there the last time you had to make room for something non-beer related! How long has it been there? What is it?

What follows, depending on what the beer it is and how long it’s been sitting forgotten in the crisper, can be described as nothing less than the feeling of a small child on Christmas day. Found beer! How great is that? Well imagine how you’d feel if you were Delaware brewers Twin Lakes, when they got a call from a local distributor saying they found three 1/2 kegs of their Oktoberfest sitting in the warehouse cooler. Of course, Twin Lakes was more than happy to share this find with its patrons. Found beer! Let’s taste!

THEM: Twin Lake’s Oktoberfest is pretty straight forward (why mess around with what works), the grain bill is built on American two row, Briess Ashburne and Bolander Munich malts. Tattnanger is the solo player here, giving the beer its slight hop touch and balancing out the beer at 40 IBUs. The beer is then fermented to 6%ABV using a Bohemian lager yeast. Oktoberfest was first brewed for the Delaware Saengerbund, a local area German-American club, for their annual Oktoberfest celebration.

ME: Nothing surprising here. Twin Lake’s Oktoberfest hits the style points pretty solidly, from the malt based aroma right down to the clean, spicey finish. It starts off with a nice white head on top a cloudy, orange body; and a good amount of supporting carbonation. The spicy/grassy elements of the Tattnanger dives playfully in an out of what is otherwise a solid malt/caramel canvas. The finish is clean with hop elements as well as a slight linger of malt. The 6%ABV is nonexistent in the profile, it’s an easy drinking beer. I’m glad they found it.